Customer Reviews

Basic Drawing Techniques

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Authors Greg Albert and Rachel Ward have teamed up to write "Basic Drawing Techniques". I suppose, that when they agreed to co-author a book, each decided that a half-effort from each would produce an entirely adequate book. Unfortunately, nothing in this dull and overly-complicated instruction is innovative.

However, by Chapter Six, the pace of instruction does pick up to cover Figure Drawing with some substance (Block figures in Chapter Six, and I'm very big on block figures, human puppets, the "simplified figurette" or the Honegumi Skeleton); but at only 121 pages, and over-priced too, This text is a featherweight in a heavyweight division. Perhaps the authors kibbitzed over coffee and decided, "Hey, Let's author a book on basic drawing, and it'll get rated on Amazon an everthin! Golly Gee Gosh!!!"

Maybe there's just a grand conspiracy somewhere, to bore the people who aren't already addicted to TV Sit-Coms, and but still make it profitable? Maybe the reason "Basic Drawing Techniques" was published was that it contains a hidden kryptogram, showing that BILL-THE-CAT only said "PHTTT!" when he was abducted by aliens. Or perhaps the authors were merely bored by all the other "basic drawing" books [there are SO MANY of them!]... At any rate, I'm sure there was some good reason this book was published; I mean, other than that the publisher was drugged or held at gunpoint...but for the life of me, I cannot think of what it is. Maybe they just ran out of SEARS CATALOGS, but... Hey, everything published...that makes it TRUE, right? Right fellas? Someone? Anyone?

Confusing it for Bert Dodson's "Keys to Drawing," I picked up this book at the library and was more than relieved I never bought it. Filled with chapters on various aspects of drawing, "Basic Drawing Techniques" is a Reader's Digest of art instruction, as each chapter is written by a different person. (Hint: comparing this book to Reader's Digest, a publication that tends to gloss over things in the name of brevity, is not a compliment!) As you can expect for a book of this type, the material cursorily goes over the art of drawing without really going into any depth. Worse yet, it's just lame and uninspiring, well-meaning intentions aside. There's nothing in this book that you haven't already read before in every other standard art instruction book, and there's nothing revolutionary in this book that will help you become a better artist or even learn how to draw if you are a beginner. The only good chapter is the excerpt from Bert Dodson's excellent book, which in my opinion is a far superior book than this one. So that being said, my suggestion is to cut out the middleman and just buy his book instead! This one, unfortunately, is for the birds. One star from me.

I recieved this book for a gift & i have it & use it for school as well as at home for lesiure.

If you want to be a spectacular artist, get this book its amazing!